set out on an overseas journey, not even bothering to attend commencement, packing notepads in anticipation of publishing a travelogue. He began by working as an able-bodied seaman through the Panama Canal and up to Alaska, working the rails up to Whitehorse, and rowing himself down the Yukon River, then hiking, hitching a ride, and riding freight trains down to Seward. Unable to buy a ticket, he stowed away back to San Francisco, ultimately having to pay for the ride, and from there joined ship's crews to Hawaii and then to Japan. From Japan onward, Murchie paid his way as a passenger, visiting several cities in China, the Philippines, Manchuria, Korea, and then Siberia, finally riding west to the Atlantic on passenger trains. He traveled frugally and sometimes suffered from the extreme cold of Manchuria and Siberia, as well as from the long waits in Soviet lines for food, train tickets, etc. The travelogue does not cover his travels beyond Moscow. Murchie's stated purpose in taking this trip might have seemed to anticipate his future embrace of the Baháʼí Faith: About the rest of [the world] I know only that it is made up of vast masses of men grouped in races and classes, unknown to each other, uninformed about each other, doubting and disliking each other—and yet, all of them made in the same image and of the same material, and all human. … I must find out for myself whether it is not ignorance, and ignorance alone, that prevents friendship and understanding between these masses of human beings. In China, Murchie was exposed to some of the signs of the coming Communist revolution in China, for instance contrasts of starvation and gluttony, and frequent reports of conflict which Murchie reported as comically harmless. He summarizes, "China is not nearly so unstable politically as it seems." In Russia, Murchie saw the Russian Communists under Stalin as similar to Christian missionaries, and Communism itself a kind of religion. The account does not mention the economic crisis that was deepening in America at the time (1930). Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd wrote the foreword on the heels of his first Antarctic expedition—and wrote of first being interested in the "clean man" of Murchie, and did not take sides in Murchie's views on the governments of the day but was very struck by the encounter with people. The book was a success.